


so why don't we go somewhere only we know

by 26stars



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Blanket Forts, Female Friendship, Fluff Bingo 2020, Gen, Insomnia, Post-Maveth, Unaddressed PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27857625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Jemma hasn't been sleeping well since she got back from Maveth. Daisy wants to help but isn't sure where to start.For the Fluff Bingo square 'blanket forts' and my femslash bingo square 'insomnia'
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 30
Collections: Agents of Fluff 2020, Women of the MCU





	so why don't we go somewhere only we know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Florchis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/gifts), [daisylincs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/gifts), [TheQueenInTheNorth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenInTheNorth/gifts).



> Thanks Flor for helping out last night and Lily and Lou for making this challenge real life!

Ever since they brought her back from Maveth, Daisy had been almost unwilling to let Jemma out of her sight. It had been one thing for her to take a night in the medical bay, for once being the patient rather than the carer, but after that, sending her off to her own bunk alone felt wrong to Daisy. Of course Jemma needed rest. Of course she needed some time alone to process her sudden change of time, place, planet…

But Daisy still hated the thought of her being alone with herself…hadn’t six months of that been enough?

Their two bunks actually share a wall on the women’s’ hall of barracks, and Daisy tries to be content with knowing that Jemma is, at long last, on the other side of it each night as she lies down in her bed. Daisy has been getting better with using her powers simply to “listen” and not just to move things, “reading” the vibrations of her surroundings and deciphering their meanings… She’d gotten used to how Jemma’s empty room “sounded” throughout those months, and now it’s just a relief to “hear” someone on the other side.

So when Daisy wakes up in the middle of the night from another nightmare (nothing new) and, out of habit, checks her surroundings with her eyes, ears, and powers, it takes her a moment to recognize that she shouldn’t be “hearing” emptiness from the room next to hers.

Suddenly wide awake, Daisy swings her legs out of her bed and heads for her door.

No one answers Jemma’s door when she knocks softly, so Daisy checks the bathroom next. The place is deserted, so she heads down the hall towards the common room, “listening” for anyone in that direction.

There’s only one person.

In the nearly-dark common room, she finds Jemma on the sofa staring absently ahead of herself, wrapped in a blanket with a mug of tea in her hands. There’s no steam coming from the drink, so it’s not hot, but it’s also still full to the brim, as if she hasn’t even sipped it yet.

Jemma’s eyes quickly find Daisy’s as she enters, but she doesn’t move, as if frozen in place. Still, there’s a small softening in her features, and eventually, she takes a small breath.

“I can’t sleep any more.” Her voice still sounds a little raspy.

_From the dry climate she described? Or from disuse?_

Relieved to have found her but no less confused, Daisy crosses the room, joining her on the couch.

“You’ve been sleeping a lot these past couple of days, right?” She doesn’t sit too close, even though she still longs to touch Jemma if only to confirm that she’s really, finally _there._

Her friend nods, now staring at her neglected tea. “Off and on. But when I check the clock, it seems like it’s never at the right time.”

Daisy nods too. “Hard to get those circadian rhythms back when we still live underground.”

Jemma sighs a little. “Yeah. I tried not sleeping all day today but didn’t quite manage it. Now, I’ve been awake for hours and can’t seem to help it. But staring around my own room got old.”

Daisy’s feet are cold from the concrete floors, so she draws her feet up onto the sofa and borrows a corner of Jemma’s blanket to cover them.

“Well, I don’t think caffeine is going to do you any favors.”

Jemma nods, lifting her cup slightly in acknowledgement. “I had the same thought. That’s why it’s gone cold now. Making tea is just a habit I was trying to force myself back into. It’s what I used to do whenever…” She trails off, still not looking at Daisy.

“Have you been having nightmares?” Daisy asks, gazing at her concernedly.

Jemma hesitates. “Sometimes, but not every time I sleep.”

“Do you want to talk about them?”

Jemma finally looks her way. “Do you want to talk about yours?” she asks flatly.

The familiarity of her tone still makes Daisy smile. “Touché.”

They lapse into a half-comfortable silence with Daisy wondering what’s worth doing next.

“If you want to come back to my room,” she finally offers, “we could watch something on my computer. I might fall asleep again, but you could just sit up and take your time.”

Jemma shakes her head. “You don’t have to do that. You should sleep. Aren’t you still doing that early morning training? I’ve heard you getting up early.”

“It will be fine,” Daisy insists.

_This is important._

Finally, Jemma looks at her again.

“All right then. I guess I might as well pour out this tea…”

She brings the blanket as they make their way back to Daisy’s room. On the other side of her door, Daisy flips on the lamp, pulls back the covers, and gestures for Jemma to climb in while she fetches her laptop. Jemma doesn’t have an opinion on a film, so Daisy chooses something they’ve watched together before that she thinks Jemma liked, pressing play and setting the laptop down at the foot of the bed. She curls down on her side next to Jemma, who sits rigidly against the headboard, staring at the screen, the blanket still held tightly around herself. Daisy doesn’t want to doze off, but she feels much better with Jemma now here, in arm’s reach…

She wakes up however long later to the sudden absence of sound.

Jemma is closing the laptop, the lamp is off, and her friend appears to be making an effort to leave the room quietly.

“Jem?” Daisy mumbles, confused.

Her friend looks back at her in the near-darkness. Daisy can barely see her face, but for some reason, Jemma seems more sure of herself than she has for a while.

“It’s all right, Daisy, you sleep. I’ll go back to my room.”

Despite Daisy’s best efforts, she can’t be persuaded otherwise, and Daisy falls asleep wondering what she could have done differently…if there’s anything that could help.

It’s two nights later that Daisy wakes up to another nightmare, realizes Jemma is not in her room again, and goes looking for her.

It’s possible that Jemma didn’t want to be found this time, but Daisy eventually tracks her down in one of the upper levels, tucked into a window recess and gazing at the stars.

“Same thing?” Daisy asks, taking a place opposite Jemma, who is wrapped in the same blanket as before.

“A bit,” Jemma says ambiguously. “You don’t need to worry—I won’t disappear on you again.”

“This isn’t about me,” Daisy insists, not sure if she believes herself though. “But you know, I’ll worry about you no matter what.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Jemma staring out the window and Daisy following her gaze, trying to imagine what she’s thinking. Her friend has yet to share details of what happened on that planet, how she survived, what she saw…

“The stars were different there,” Jemma eventually whispers. “Of course, I couldn’t know what any of them were, whether I was seeing our stars from a different angle, the farther side…but after a few…days? Weeks?... I couldn’t call to mind clearly what our sky here looked like anymore. And that scared me most…the forgetting…”

Daisy waits for more, but when Jemma doesn’t speak again for nearly a minute, she dares to press her luck.

“Did you sleep under the stars there?”

Jemma inclines her head briefly. “At first. I never felt safe, though. And eventually there was a shelter…”

Jemma trails off, but Daisy feels like they’re onto something.

“What was the shelter like?”

It takes a moment, but eventually Jemma paints her a picture.

“A cave. It was always dark outside, but in that cave, it was warm, and quiet, and there was a string of lights…we had cots…”

Daisy now has a million more questions, but they’re not for right now.

_One step at a time._

And at least now, she has an idea.

Daisy has to disappear for a bit to gather the pieces, but when she eventually fetches Jemma back down to the barracks hall, she opens Jemma’s bunk door to reveal a tent frame from the basement storage and a pile of spare blankets similar to Jemma’s. Her friend looks confused when she turns to Daisy expectantly, but Daisy just leads her in with a smile.

“Help me with this.”

Between the two of them, they are able to set up a passable blanket fort over the small space of bare carpet in her tiny room, using some of her existing furniture in the process. Once there’s a suitable layer of blankets blocking out all the light and mimicking a cave, Daisy produces a strand of battery-powered fairy lights that she’s had sitting around since last Christmas’s post-holiday sale. Beneath the blankets, she winds them in loops over the bars of the frame and switches them on, then pulls the duvet and pillows off the bed and dives into their makeshift tent. Once she’s spread the duvet over the hard ground and arranged their pillows on it, Daisy leans out of the little entrance and gestures Jemma inside.

Her friend crawls beneath with her, still holding her blanket around herself like armor and peering up at the space Daisy has made for her.

“Maybe it’s not the same,” Daisy says apologetically, “and so obviously _not the same_ that it doesn’t make a difference, but maybe…maybe this could feel familiar enough to help you sleep a bit better?”

Jemma, cross-legged on the floor, finally looks over at Daisy with tears in her eyes.

“Maybe.”

She opens one wing of her blanket, inviting Daisy into her space, and Daisy eagerly moves closer, wrapping her in a hug.

“Thank you,” Jemma whispers against her hair.

Daisy eventually falls asleep with Jemma, curled together beneath that blanket.

And she takes it as a good sign that when she wakes up the next morning, Jemma is still _there_ , right there, and fast asleep.


End file.
